Feather
by That Tath
Summary: It’s as long as his forearm and pitch black, whether from ash or naturally Dean doesn’t know. He treats it like a talisman, and keeps it by him as a reminder of the first death of the apocalypse. Sad fic, happy ending. Character death, but not really.


**Disclaimer: I wish I owned, but I don't.**

**A/N: Can't wait for season 5 to start! This is just an idea that's been bothering me for the past few days. Hope you like!**

Dean stares at the remains of the house, unable to bring himself to go inside but also unable to leave the site. He had been inside only the day before, brought there by Castiel to ask Chuck where Sam was. He'd been stupidly, foolishly thinking that they'd get the location, stop Sam from killing Lilith, and the three of them would keep low and stay away from angels and demons alike.

Then the archangels showed up and Castiel sent him off to the convent by himself, opting to stay behind to hold the archangels off.

And that was the last Dean saw of him.

Now, staring at the house, it's finally starting to sink in that that was probably the last time he'd ever see the angel. The official report had said that there was a gas explosion, though Chuck's body had yet to be recovered. Personally, Dean thinks that the archangels just blew the place- and Castiel- to bits, and brought Chuck somewhere "safe".

With a sigh, he starts up the walkway towards the house, ducking under the police tape and slipping past the door hanging off its hinges. His steps are cautious as he makes his way through the house, though every movement causes the unstable building to groan in protest. He hesitates for a brief moment in the doorway of one of the rooms, before stepping inside.

Even if he hadn't already known it, Dean could tell that this was where it all went down. The room was absolutely destroyed with the exception of one, small area where Chuck must have stood. He moved forward to stand in the very center of the room, in the spot where he knew Castiel had once stood to face the archangels. Scattered on the floor were dark feathers, but when he went to pick one up his fingers brushed it away, revealing it as nothing more than ash.

A lump forms in his throat and Dean stumbles back to lean against the wall. He tries to tell himself that it doesn't matter that Cas is dead, that he was one of _them_ anyway, but in his heart he knows that the angel was as much a victim as he was. He slams his fist into the wall, too wrapped up in his thoughts to notice the house shift underneath him. He's almost too distracted to feel something brush against his shoulder, but his years spent as a hunter have heightened his senses and he looks over just in time to see a single feather fall to the ground.

He picks it up gently. It's as long as his forearm and pitch black, whether from ash or naturally Dean doesn't know. It seems delicate in a way that goes beyond the charred edges and he handles it carefully. He glances up, wondering briefly where it came from, but sees nothing.

Sam looks up from watching the news when he returns to the hotel later that afternoon. The guilty, haunted look that has become a permanent fixture on his face is replaced by the question that he longs to ask, but is afraid to know the answer to. Dean doesn't look at him as he sets the feather on the table, and neither says anything for the rest of the night.

XXXXX

The feather stays at Dean's side wherever he goes. Its size makes it difficult to carry it on him at all times, but it's either in the motel room or waiting out in the Impala. He treats it like a talisman, and it seems to live up to its new status. They frequently get reports of hunters that have been killed but neither Winchester has so much as a scratch.

Dean doesn't care whether the feather is lucky, or whether it's even supposed to be, because the owner of the feather is dead. He keeps it by him as a reminder of the first death of the apocalypse and vows to get revenge for everything that has happened.

XXXXX

Sam's starting to drift away again and Dean feels both guilty and relieved. Relieved because he's not distancing himself because of his powers, but simply because he can't handle the fact that he brought about the apocalypse. Guilty because Dean doesn't know what he can do to help him. It was easier when Sam was just upset about the death of Jessica. At least then Dean could convince his brother that what had happened wasn't his fault, but now they both know that that would be a lie.

Its times like this that Dean misses Castiel the most. He wants nothing more than the angel to suddenly appear next to him. They'd start talking, whether about the actual problem at hand or not, and by the time that Cas vanished again somehow Dean would feel better for a little while, not matter how dark their conversation got.

But Castiel doesn't show up, and won't show up anymore. Dean's on his own and he's started clinging to the feather like it's his only lifeline, hoping that somehow the feather has retained some of its owner's abilities to calm him down. Surprisingly, it seems to work. Even more miraculously, when he slips it under Sam's pillow one night on a whim, it seems to help him a bit too.

XXXXX

Dean is starting to forget things about Castiel. He can remember a tan trench coat and piercing blue eyes, dark, messy hair and the serious expression that the angel always wore, but the pieces don't match up to create the whole person. Old conversations of theirs run through his head, but while he remembers what was said he can't bring back the voice.

This forgetfulness scares him. He might not have always been on the best of terms with Castiel, but the angel did sacrifice himself to give Dean a chance to stop Sam. He showed his true colors that night, and proved that he wasn't like the others of his kind. Dean doesn't want a person like that to be forgotten, but the remembering seems to have fallen solely on him.

It feels like he's betraying the angel every time Dean forgets what he looked like.

XXXXX

It's almost exactly five years after Lucifer was released that Dean manages to kill him. The body disintegrates almost as soon as Lucifer is gone, the demon having been the only thing still holding it together. Dean drops the sword he had had to use and stares down at the corpse. After trying, and failing, so many times to kill him, he can't believe that he's finally succeeded.

He stands in silence for a few moments, remembering what they went through to get to this point. By his calculations over half of the hunters in the country should be dead. When added to the other deaths, it's clear that the war has taken its toll on everyone. Ellen and Jo are both long gone, and Bobby joined them about a year ago.

His Impala was destroyed less than two weeks earlier, and Sam met his end in that same crash. The wound is still fresh and raw and Dean does his best not to think about it.

Dean reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the feather. It was the first, and last time, he had taken it into a battle with him and sometime during the fight it had snapped it half. He holds it in front of him, surprisingly not as upset about its destruction as he would have been earlier.

As he turns it over in his hands he catches a glimpse of something shining where the feather had broken. He digs around in his pockets for a moment before pulling out a small, glass vial that earlier had held one of the key ingredients in the summoning ritual he had used. Dean carefully tips the substance into the jar. Even though he's seeing it with his own two eyes, he can't believe what it is.

It's an angel's grace.

Dean's eyes are fixed on the bottle, though his mind is moving at a mile a minute. Its Cas's, he knows it is. _What if Cas fell before the archangels got him?_ He thinks excitedly._ What if he left Jimmy's body, tucked his grace in one of his feathers, and fell? _

_What if he's still alive?_

XXXXX

Dean wears the bottle of grace as a necklace, much as Uriel had done with Anna's. His new purpose in life is to find human-Cas and see if he remembers being an angel, if he remembers him. It helps distract him from the pain of having lost Sam again and keeps him from destroying himself in anguish.

The search is slow, and harder than he had originally anticipated. He takes on small hunting jobs in his spare time, just simple spirits and exorcisms. The hunts are awkward now that the general public knows what he did, but for the most part things run smoothly. He travels as inconspicuously as he can, avoids any and all publicity, and for the most part it works.

It is during one of those few hunts that Dean overhears part of a conversation that immediately gets his attention. He is sitting in the far corner of a small diner. Nearby are two women that he'd been hoping would start gossiping about the spirit. Instead, they talk about a child.

"I feel so sorry for them," one of them says. "Mark won't come out and say it, but he's hurt that his own son refuses to acknowledge him as his father."

The other one nods. "And all that little Robbie will do is scream for Dean Winchester. Well, as you can imagine, Irene tried to get in touch with him but the man is impossible to reach."

"He saved the world and just vanished!" The first one says with a laugh. "Well, I hope they manage to figure something out soon."

Dean gets up and makes his way over to them. "Excuse me, ladies, but I couldn't help but overhear what you were saying…"

All it takes is two autographs to get the address and it isn't long before he's at the house. The mother is overjoyed to see him and lets him in immediately. The story she gives him is eerily similar to Anna's early years as a human and as soon as he sees the kid he knows that it's Cas.

After she's done talking, Dean tells her what he thinks is going on. He leaves out the gruesome details, though even that isn't enough to soften the blow that her son may be an angel. "I'd like to talk to him, see if he can't remember anything," Dean says quietly. "If it is him, I'll leave the grace with you so you can decide whether or not to give it back to him. I won't take him away from you."

The woman nods and, though she looks completely overwhelmed, gives him directions to her son's room. As soon as Dean opens the door, he knows he's found Castiel. The boy has that same aura to him and immediately runs over to him, telling Dean how much he's missed him and could he please stay?

Though Dean doesn't want to leave, he eventually extracts himself from the child and goes back downstairs. He silently hands the bottle of grace over to the woman, gives her his phone number, and leaves the house.

The next few days are hell for Dean and it's all he can do not to drink himself into oblivion. He finally gets a voicemail on his phone and from what he can make out through the sobbing, it seems like young Robbie had become Castiel again. For awhile Dean is ecstatic, hoping that this means that at least one of his former companions will return to him. But as the days pass into weeks, he realizes that Cas isn't coming back to him and that hurts almost worse than any other loss so far.

XXXXX

Dean knows he's dying. He knows he's going to bleed to death rather quickly unless he does something to stop the blood flow, but he doesn't care. Maybe if Sam was still around, or Bobby, or hell, even that traitor Castiel, but not now. He watches the blood pool around him and closes his eyes. Finally, everything is over.

When he opens his eyes, he's surprised that the first thing he sees is Castiel, looking exactly like he always had. "What the fuck are you doing here?" he asks. "And why do you look like your old vessel?"

"Some of the others owed me favors, and arranged for me to look like this when I met you," he said, his voiced sounding the same as ever. "And I am here to make you an offer."

"Yeah, well I don't want any offers from you guys," Dean snarls.

Castiel ignores him and continues talking. "They are willing to put you back on Earth and grant one request of yours. You could bring your brother back, Dean, or your father, or mother."

Dean hesitates. He wants to go back to life with Sammy, but he's brought Sam back to life before and it's ended badly. "Are they going to bring me back to life no matter what?"

Castiel nods. "I'm sorry. They feel that you are not supposed to be dead now."

Dean nods as well, and sighs. "Can you just tell me one thing? What happened after you sent me to the convent? And why didn't you come back after you had your grace?"

"I knew that I was going to die," Castiel says slowly. "So I did the only thing I could think of, and tore my grace out. I knew I needed to be around to help you, and I was hoping that you'd find my grace in the feather and restore it to me, but it seems everything happened too late. As to why I didn't return…" His voice trails off.

"They wouldn't let you," Dean says, suddenly realizing what had happened. "They knew you had fallen and didn't want that to happen again, so they wouldn't let you leave. You're only here now to grant me my wish and send me back."

Castiel nods silently, confirming what Dean said.

Dean feels like he's failed. All that time, he knew something was different about the feather, knew that it retained some power of the angel's, but he didn't do any research into it. Who knows how many people he might have been able to save if he had managed to restore the grace to Castiel sooner?

"Do not blame yourself," Castiel says, easily figuring out what Dean had been thinking. "It is my fault. I should've made it easier for you, or stayed in my vessel even as a human…"

Dean suddenly has a brilliant, yet undeniably stupid, idea. "Cas, my request is that we go back to the night that Lucifer rose," he says. "Before you fell. If you stay in your vessel, and I bring the grace back to you, maybe…"

"There's no guarantee that this will work," Castiel interrupts. "Why would you risk your own happiness?"

Dean doesn't know how to answer. This plan will bring back Sam and Bobby and the others, as well as Castiel, and maybe this time they can all make it through this in one piece. He doesn't know how to tell the angel that he wants him to be able to enjoy a human life, and still get his grace back in the end if he wants. He doesn't know how to explain that he missed Cas almost as much as he misses Sam, and that this way he can bring everyone back. "I never got to take you to a strip club," he finally says. "And being able to do that would make me really freakin' happy."

Castiel seems to understand what was left unsaid and nods. "Very well," he said, reaching out to touch Dean's forehead. Dean feels himself falling forward, and then remembers nothing.

XXXXX

The feather has yet to leave Dean's side since he found it in the house. For some reason he feels that its important in a way that goes beyond its luckiness and calming ability, but he can't think of any reason why. It's a puzzle that he wishes he had the time to solve, but with Lucifer walking around it's on the bottom of his list of things to do. So it stays in his bag or in his car, a constant reminder of the loss of Castiel.

One night, there's a knock at their motel room door. Sam and Dean look at each other, both wondering who it could be. Dean picks up Ruby's knife while Sam grabs a shotgun. He looks through the peephole in the door, stunned by who he sees standing there. "Cas!" he says as he wrenches the door open.

The angel looks a little bit worse for the wear. He's clearly exhausted, not to mention completely filthy. "Dean. Sam," he says by way of a greeting, his voice sounding hoarser than usual.

"Cas, what the hell happened to you?" Dean asks as he guides the angel over to a nearby chair.

"I fell."

"You _what_?"

"I fell," Castiel repeats. He doesn't sound like he believes it himself. "Dean, did you find a feather at the prophet's house?"

Dean frowns. "How did you know?" he asks as he retrieves it from his bag and holds it out to Castiel.

The former angel takes it and studies it for a moment before handing it back. "Keep that safe," he says. "The day may come when we need it again."

Sam frowns. "What's so special about it?"

"It contains my grace," Castiel says. Both brothers look at it in a new light, and Dean carefully sets it aside.

"Are you sure you don't want it now?" Sam asks.

"Course he doesn't, Sammy," Dean says. "He's human now, and I think we need to take a moment to celebrate! Where's the nearest strip club?"

Castiel, to his surprise, starts to smile, and though Dean has a feeling that he should know what's so amusing, he can't quite put his finger on it.


End file.
